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Tuesday, 15 March 2011

Homemade Pies FTW

Here at pierate, we not only want to inform you of the best pies you can buy in shops, we also want to share with you ideas to create your own master pie-ces, (like the Lentil Pie featured earlier). So today we have two pie recipes to share with our fellow pie lovers!

Pie On A Budget.
We've all been there. You have people coming around for dinner and it's not pay day until tomorrow. You know they're not expecting a slap up meal, but beans on toast is not an option either. You need to impress them. But lo! Feeding four on a budget really is as easy as pie.

Armed with a £4 Tesco club card voucher I headed into the supermarket and came out with: 59p 'just add water' pastry mix, 2 for £1 condensed soup tins (one chicken, one chicken with white wine), a 36p tin of sweetcorn, a bag of frozen chips (99p) and a £1 bag of frozen veg. "Wait!" I hear you cry! "Where is the meat?" Well, when I got home I defrosted a bag of roast chicken leftovers, the 'red' meat that goes well in things like casseroles. Well it also goes brilliantly in pie! I also chucked in a few finely chopped mushrooms that I had in the fridge and needed using up.

I made the pie and served in with the chips and veg. It went down a storm and I was commended on my chef skills and was begged for the recipe. So here it is pie fans! A fantastic pie on a fantastic budget!

Is It a Pie?

A huge question here at pierate is whether mash potato on top of a base counts as a pie (e.g. the traditional Shepard's Pie). The general opinion of pieraters is that these are not in fact pies. But this image of meat and gravy baked in the oven with mash on top (rather than pastry) is strong in the public's view of pies. Furthermore, here at pierate, we encourage experimentation. So here is a classic twist on the traditional Shepard's 'Pie'.

Here we have the chicken and bacon 'pie'. Diced chicken and bacon, fried with herbs, garlic and pepper then chucked in a pie dish with a cheese sauce and a tin of sweetcorn, then mash potato placed on top and baked until the mash is tinged brown. Now, not one to blow my own trumpet, this 'pie' was scrummy. But while it was baked in a pie dish and had a lid, it doesn't really count as a pie. Now if the whole thing were to be encased in pastry (including the mash)... That must be my next project.